Catholics and Modern Anti-Semitism

For certain personalities, drugs such as methamphetamine have an almost irresistible appeal. Only later does it turn out that an addictive substance can take over your life, enslaving the intellect and the moral sense. Anti-­Semitism works in a similar way. The evidence is all around us, in the resurgence of anti-Semitic ideologies and conspiracy theories on both the left and the right. Strikingly, much contemporary anti-­Semitism comes from Christians—perhaps the two most prominent anti-Semites, Nicholas Fuentes and Candace Owens, are Catholics—and it sometimes justifies itself by appealing to Christian theology and history. Yet the real roots of modern anti-­Semitism are not in orthodox Catholicism, but in the anti-Christian thinkers of the Enlightenment.